More than 30 years after men last set foot on the Moon, NASA is almost ready to return.
About 75 students saw NASA representative Jim Simek discuss NASA’s past, present and future at Ryan Family Auditorium Thursday evening. The event was sponsored by the Residential College Board.
Simek has worked for NASA for more than 35 years, based out of the Glenn Research Center near Cleveland, Ohio. His presentation began with a synopsis of the history of NASA, from its origins as the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics to the agency’s current role.
The majority of the presentation concerned the development of the International Space Station and the future of NASA’s space exploration program. In the short term, NASA will continue working with other nations’ space agencies to complete the International Space Station, which is expected to be finished in 2010, Simek said.
Though space shuttles will continue making trips to the station until that time, the space station is scheduled to be retired in the same year, after more than 25 years of service and two fatal accidents. The long-term future of NASA lies with the Constellation program, the next generation of spacecraft that is expected to be finished in 2013, Simek said.
NASA’s budget is set several years in advance. NASA will see federal funds decline for the shuttle program, but this is offset by a rise in spending for the Constellation program. New diplomatic tension between the United States and Russia over the Russian invasion of Georgia this August poses a potential problem to NASA’s planned three-year gap between the shuttle and next generation spacecraft, Simek said.
“We’re going to have to rely on Russia for three, maybe four years to work with getting people and supplies to the International Space Station,” Simek said.
There is currently a bill sitting in Congress that would expand NASA’s budget to extend the life of the shuttle as well as move forward the completion date for Constellation, Simek said.
Space tourism and long-term inhabitation both came up in the question-and-answer session following Simek’s speech.
NASA would like to establish a small lunar base down the line, potentially taking advantage of mining resources available near the Moon’s north pole, Simek said. Whereas the Apollo spacecraft only stayed on the lunar surface for several hours, the new Orion capsule will allow for twice as many astronauts to remain on the Moon for up to two weeks, resulting in far greater exploration opportunity, Simek said.
The space tourism industry for now will largely be limited to millionaires taken up by the Russians, Simek said.
“As far as commercializing the space program, I don’t think that will happen for many years, until it gets to the point where they can put up a Holiday Inn or something like that,” he said.
While McCormick sophomore Ken Fuller is not particularly interested in the space program, he said he attended the event because he wanted to learn a bit more than what he has read in the newspaper.
“It was really interesting, I thought he had a very good presentation,” he said.
RCB has not brought a speaker in a while, so the group was interested in offering an event the campus could enjoy, said Vice President of Academics Eugenia Gabrielov.
“A lot of our residents and a lot of the (executive) board showed interest in something related to space,” the McCormick junior said. “People may know a little about Mars, a little about different shuttles that have gone up, but maybe not so much of what’s going on currently.”
